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The World of Georic 1989-Present

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Mepacon Spring 2010 Review

So, I got the opportunity to spend the afternoon at Mepacon Spring, up in Clarks Summit. Although I saw no games that I was interested in, I figured it would be good to get out, meet up with Nichols, spend $25 to support the con, check out the auction table, and worst case, drive back down to my house and play some Gnome Wars in the garage.

That last option was not needed.

I arrived about 1:30, met up with Nichols, and found a fairly empty con. I managed to elude the talkative clutches of writer C.J. Henderson. I will owe it to him next con out of my guilty conscience, but I could not waste my minimal time at the con on a cloaked sales spiel. The Portal was there as well, but they had nothing that screamed "Here is my plastic! Clean out my bank account!" Two other vendors had a nice variety of "old" (10-20 years) books at cheap prices, but nothing caught my interest.

The initial auction table was chock full of interesting goodies, and the charity auction (proceeds going to the Scranton Rescue Mission) was even more tempting. There was some game called "Racing '57" with 50's style die cast stock cars and wooden board. I decided there that we would stay.

A surprising crowd came back at 2pm, and I saw the normal familiar faces. Steve "Drow Game" Heitzer. Larry "Dragonlance.... er Realms Campaign at the Con" Anders, along with young lackey. Even Gerry Rhyder made an appearance, jumping in the Gnome Wars game we were setting up and singing the praises of Troll & Toad to sell OOP items too.

Two faces I did not see: (1) Mike Sarno, he had a full block of events to run but was nowhere to be seen. He had shown interest in playing Gnome Wars, so it was disappointing he wasn't there. I hope everything is okay. (2) Mike Griffith. Although the former con-meister hasn't made a public appearance in over 11+ years, I have an update. Mike apparently is still residing in Moscow (PA) and working for an insurance agency in Allentown (the Poconos are his territory). All is well with the family, his daughter (a little tyke the last time I saw her) is now a teenager. Mike's only gaming is D&D Online, Monday nights on the Sonoma server. I've got no other details, but I'm happy everythings okay.

The Gnome Wars game was a live run of the Fort in the Teutonburg Forest scenario that I've been testing out in my garage. Gerry vs. Nichols, with me running some Swiss. The Sikhs and German garrison succeeded in their missions, all other units failed spectacularly.

After clean-up, and some raffle tickets, the auction/contest/raffle period began. I snagged a copy of Ren Faire card game in the raffle. Nothing like you doing silly tasks to earn coins to dress your fake Ren Faire visitor, like a paper doll. Seems intriguing.

Before the auction, Convention MC Ed Lehman took a moment to thank the long-working (some long suffering) con workers. A lot of them slave over four days, to only play in one or two games if their lucky. He also pointed out Steve "Drow Game" Heitzer for running a Saturday afternoon Drow Campaign for just about 17+ Mepacons. I was touched that he acknowledged me as part of the convention "Old Guard" harkening back to the days of Bogglecon, Lehicon, various other Lehigh Valley cons. Dude, I'm a convention grognard? I'll take that.

Ed also mentioned that the next Fall and Spring Mepacons will celebrate *gasp* ten years of the con's existence. No other details as to what they have planned, but it does put things into perspective. Since the first con was ran at the Wind Gap Legion Hall, the staff was evolved and solidified their operations. I don't think that staff members drive home from the con in new Lexuses, but keeping a con afloat this long is VERY impressive. Many thanks to the RPGA/Pathfinder players from NY and Connecticut who keep showing up and paying full price every con.

The auction was a blast. James Bond 007 rulebook, three modules, plus A View to a Kill still in the original shrinkwrap? $5.00. Four GURPS books? $3.00 The Bill of Rights card/board game $5.00-ish. Tiki Topple? $10.00 ( I admit I went overboard on that, but people though Swahili was silly for a buck. Tiki Gods? They must be mine!)

The Racing '57 game was a bit of craziness. Normally I'm the one to shout out a bid-ending price "ten bucks!", but this time another person shouted out "Twenty bucks!" My instinct beat my logic with $25. I think we stopped at $28 and I let the fella have it, since I would need to hit the ATM if I had won it.

The other big auction win was Supremacy for $20. I'm very happy to find out it came complete. I'm a bit worried about introducing "Druken Supremacy" at SATLOF this year. Nukes and Hoyce are not a good option....

Overall for the short time I was there the con was enjoyable, a number of games were held, attendance was up, and I traded a box of crap to Charity Mystery Box in the auction for a box of decent or awesome items. Plus, my wonderful honey got a Banana Split Blizzard from DQ to celebrate my return home by 9pm.

I'll have other posts later with pics of the Gnome Wars games, along with my ideas to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Mepacon, but for know, sleep beckons.

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